Former top executives at medical device maker Endocare Inc. have been accused in a civil lawsuit of lying to investors, booking false sales and issuing public statements falsely blaming their own misdeeds on a former employee.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed the charges late Wednesday against former Chief Executive Paul W. Mikus and former Chief Financial Officer John V. Cracchiolo more than three years after both men left the Irvine-based company.

The charges against Mikus and Cracchiolo, which carry civil penalties of $120,000 per violation, accuse the pair of overstating Endocare earnings by more than $6 million in 2001 and 2002.

Phone calls to attorneys for Mikus, 40, of Irvine, and Cracchiolo, 50, of Gardnerville, Nev., were not returned. An Endocare official said Thursday that current management continues to cooperate with regulators. In July, the company paid $750,000 to settle its role in the case.

“This is a continuation of the same investigation that began in 2002 and was recently settled by the company,” said spokesman Matt Clawson. “Both the individuals in question left in 2003 and we don’t expect any impact on the operations of the company or on its technology.”

The company, seeking to develop products that treat cancers of the prostate and other organs, this month posted a second quarter loss of $708,000, compared with a year-ago loss of $4.2 million. The company has said it needs to find investors or new financing to stay in business beyond March.

The earnings news included a disclosure that the SEC had issued a subpoena looking at the timing of stock options. It is unclear if that investigation is connected to the charges against Mikus and Cracchiolo.

Clawson said the company – created in the mid-1990s as a spin-off from Medstone Inc. – remains optimistic that it will find investors, even in the face of difficulties.

“Any time you’re in the news for something like this, it’s never good,” Clawson said Thursday. “But sophisticated investors understand it’s something that happened four to five years ago. This is not any new allegation that came to light today.”

The company’s stock closed Thursday at $1.75 a share, down nearly 9 percent on the day and off by more than half over the past year.

In addition to financial penalties against Mikus and Cracchiolo, the SEC also will seek to bar the pair from working at a publicly traded company. Michele Wein Layne, associate regional director for the SEC in Los Angeles, said the length of that ban is likely to be part of any settlement.